This week, as gas prices hit four dollars a gallon, oil companies like ExxonMobil announced skyrocketing profits -- while still receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.

There's something wrong with this picture, and in this video President Obama outlines the steps we're taking to make it right:

A few weeks ago, I emailed you about rising gas prices, and I want to give you a quick update on three important steps:

Ending oil and gas subsidies. Oil companies are receiving $4 billion a year in taxpayer subsidies that don't make sense and that we can't afford. That's why President Obama has called on Democrats and Republicans in Congress to stop subsidizing the oil and gas industry so that we can afford to invest in the clean energy economy of tomorrow.

Stopping oil market fraud. Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a working group focused on rooting out the cases of fraud in the oil markets that might affect gas prices (the President discussed this in his Weekly Address last Saturday).

Reducing our dependence on oil. Stepping back to look at the bigger picture, President Obama recently unveiled his Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future that set a goal of reducing our imports of foreign oil by a third in a little over a decade. To do this we have to increase our domestic energy production, reduce our demand for oil by building cleaner, more efficient vehicles, and fully utilize alternatives to oil in the transportation sector like natural gas and advanced biofuels.

These are difficult issues to tackle, and it's going to take all of us working together to move forward. For years, politicians in Washington have kicked this problem down the road, but we simply cannot afford the price of inaction any longer.

Ambassador Susan Rice delivered remarks on the situation in Syria, at the UN Security Council Stakeout on April 26, 2011. She said, "...The brutal violence being used by the Government of Syria against its own people is abhorrent and deplorable, and the United States condemns it in the strongest terms. The outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end -- and now."

Ambassador Rice continued, "...The Syrian Government's actions to repeal the decade's old emergency law and allow for peaceful demonstrations were clearly not serious, given the continued violent repression against protesters. The United States is currently pursuing a range of possible policy options, including additional targeted sanctions, to respond to the crackdown and make clear that this behavior is unacceptable.

"The Syrian people's call for freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly and to choose their leaders freely must be heard. We strongly oppose the Syrian government's treatment of its citizens and we continue to oppose its continued destabilizing behavior more generally -- including support for terrorism and terrorist groups. Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is disingenuously blaming outsiders, while at the same time seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria's citizens, through the same brutal tactics that have been used by the Iranian regime. The United States will continue to stand up for democracy and respect for human rights, the universal rights that all human beings deserve in Syria and around the world."

Ed. Note: Read the transcript of the President's remarks following this release or watch the video below:

In 2008, in response to media inquiries, the President’s campaign requested his birth certificate from the state of Hawaii.

The state sent the campaign the President’s birth certificate, the same legal documentation provided to all Hawaiians as proof of birth in state, and the campaign immediately posted it on the internet.

When any citizen born in Hawaii requests their birth certificate, they receive exactly what the President received. In fact, the document posted on the campaign website is what Hawaiians use to get a driver’s license from the state and the document recognized by the Federal Government and the courts for all legal purposes. That’s because it is the birth certificate. This is not and should not be an open question.

The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country. Therefore, the President directed his counsel to review the legal authority for seeking access to the long form certificate and to request on that basis that the Hawaii State Department of Health make an exception to release a copy of his long form birth certificate. They granted that exception in part because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been getting.

At a time of great consequence for this country – when we should be debating how we win the future, reduce our deficit, deal with high gas prices, and bring stability to the Middle East, Washington, DC, was once again distracted by a fake issue. The President’s hope is that with this step, we can move on to debating the bigger issues that matter to the American people and the future of the country.

We noted after the President’s town hall in Virginia that the questions he got from the crowd mirrored almost perfectly the issues that are being debated right now in Washington, and that the philosophical differences guiding that debate will have profound implications for the lives of virtually every American throughout their lives. And so while a Facebook Town Hall on our fiscal future might seem an odd fit at first glance, the President explained in his opening remarks why a platform like that was important:

And historically, part of what makes for a healthy democracy, what is good politics, is when you’ve got citizens who are informed, who are engaged. And what Facebook allows us to do is make sure this isn’t just a one-way conversation; makes sure that not only am I speaking to you but you're also speaking back and we're in a conversation, we’re in a dialogue.

Members of the audience take pictures as President Barack Obama participates in a town hall meeting moderated by CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. April 20, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

The questions came from a number of sources, from Facebook employees in the room to Facebook users across the country who had opportunities to ask questions live or days ahead of time.

Q Hi, Mr. President. Thank you so much for joining us today. I am originally from Detroit, Michigan, and now I'm out here working at Facebook. So my question for you kind of builds on some of the things we were just talking about. At the beginning of your term you spent a lot of time talking about job creation and the road to economic recovery, and one of the ways to do that would be substantially increasing federal investments in various areas as a way to fill the void left from consumer spending. Since then, we’ve seen the conversation shift from that of job creation and economic recovery to that of spending cuts and the deficit. So I would love to know your thoughts on how you’re going to balance these two going forward, or even potentially shift the conversation back.

THE US-PRESIDENT: Well, you’re exactly right that when I first came into office our number-one job was preventing us from getting into another Great Depression. And that was what the Recovery Act was all about. So we helped states make sure that they could minimize some of the layoffs and some of the difficult budget choices that they faced. We made sure that we had infrastructure spending all around the country. And, in fact, we made the biggest investment in infrastructure since Dwight Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System.

We made the largest investment in history in clean energy research, and it’s really paying off. For example, when I came into office, we had about 2 percent of the advanced battery manufacturing here in America. And as everybody here knows, what’s really holding us back from my goal of a million electric vehicles on the road is that battery technology is still tough. It’s clunky; it’s heavy; it’s expensive. And if we can make significant improvements in battery technology then I think the opportunities for electric vehicles, alternative vehicles that are much cheaper -- our opportunities are limitless.

So those were all investments that we made in the first two years. Now, the economy is now growing. It’s not growing quite as fast as we would like, because after a financial crisis, typically there’s a bigger drag on the economy for a longer period of time. But it is growing. And over the last year and a half we’ve seen almost 2 million jobs created in the private sector.

Because this recession came at a time when we were already deeply in debt and it made the debt worse, if we don’t have a serious plan to tackle the debt and the deficit, that could actually end up being a bigger drag on the economy than anything else. If the markets start feeling that we’re not serious about the problem, and if you start seeing investors feel uncertain about the future, then they could pull back right at the time when the economy is taking off.

So you’re right that it’s tricky. Folks around here are used to the hills in San Francisco, and you’ve driven -- I don’t know if they still have clutch cars around here. Anybody every driven a clutch car? (Laughter.) I mean, you got to sort of tap and -- well, that’s sort of what we faced in terms of the economy, right? We got to hit the accelerator, but we’ve got to also make sure that we don’t gun it; we can’t let the car slip backwards. And so what we’re trying to do then is put together a debt and deficit plan that doesn’t slash spending so drastically that we can’t still make investments in education, that we can’t still make investments in infrastructure -- all of which would help the economy grow.

In December, we passed a targeted tax cut for business investment, as well as the payroll tax that has a stimulus effect that helps to grow the economy. We can do those things and still grow the economy while having a plan in place to reduce the deficit, first by 2015, and then over the long term. So I think we can do both, but it does require the balanced approach that I was talking about.

If all we’re doing is spending cuts and we’re not discriminating about it, if we’re using a machete instead of a scalpel and we’re cutting out things that create jobs, then the deficit could actually get worse because we could slip back into another recession.

And obviously for folks in Detroit, where you’re from, they know that our investments can make a difference because we essentially saved the U.S. auto industry. We now have three auto companies here in America that are all turning a profit. G.M. just announced that it’s hiring back all of the workers that it was planning to lay off. And we did so, by the way, at the same time as we were able to increase fuel efficiency standards on cars for the first time in 30 years. So it can be done, but it takes a balanced approach. (Applause.)

Members of the audience listen as President Barack Obama participates in a town hall meeting moderated by CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. April 20, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Your Turn to Weigh In on the 2011 Commencement Challenge

This year, one lucky high school will have an unforgettable commencement speaker – President Obama – and we need your help to determine which school it will be.

As part of the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge, public high schools around the country submitted an application earlier this year that describe how their school is preparing students for college and a career.

We’ve narrowed down the schools to six finalists and now it’s your turn to weigh in. Each school produced a short video with help from the Get Schooled Foundation and essay. You can review and rate each school on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest) between today and Friday April 29 at 11:59 p.m. EDT.

Your ratings will help us narrow down the pool to three finalists and President Obama will select the winning school from one of these three.

Check out this video of President Obama asking for your feedback on the Commencement Challenge finalists, and then head over to

The Commencement Challenge gives public high schools a chance to demonstrate how their school best prepares students for college and a career, helping America win the future by out-educating our competitors and achieving President Obama’s goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.

Each of the six finalists schools are an excellent example of the best America’s public schools have to offer.

Freitag, 1. April 2011

Surprised at how much it cost last time you filled up your gas tank? You're not alone. Millions of families and businesses across the country are feeling the pinch of rising gas prices.

Here's the thing: as long as our economy relies on oil and as demand in countries like China and India continues to grow, we'll be subject to these kinds of spikes in gas prices.

We've been down this road before -- just three years ago, gas prices rose to their highest level ever. There was no quick fix to lower prices then, just as there isn't one now.

For decades, politicians here in Washington have talked a lot about the dangers of our dependence on foreign oil, but this talk hasn't always been met with action. And today, Americans pay a price for that inaction every time they fill up their tanks.

Yesterday, we unveiled a Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future that sets a goal of reducing our imports of foreign oil. By 2025 -- a little more than a decade from now -- we will have cut that reliance by one-third.

Learn more about the Blueprint and watch President Obama's speech on energy security:

In his speech yesterday, President Obama outlined his plan to secure our energy future by developing and securing America's energy resources, bringing energy costs down for consumers, and innovating our way to a clean energy future.

Increase domestic energy production. Last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003. And, because we can't just drill our way out of this crisis, we're reducing our dependence on oil by increasing fuel efficiency and increasing our production of natural gas and biofuels.

Reduce demand for oil. Transportation is responsible for 70 percent of our petroleum consumption, so one of the quickest and easiest ways to reduce our dependence on foreign oil is to make transportation more efficient. That's why, in April of last year, the Obama Administration established a groundbreaking national fuel efficiency standard for cars and trucks that will save us 1.8 billion barrels of oil and save consumers thousands of dollars. We're also making investments in electric vehicles and the advanced batteries that power them to ensure that high-quality, fuel-efficient cars and trucks are built right here in America.

Increase production of clean energy. In his State of the Union address, President Obama set a goal that by 2035, 80 percent of our electricity should come from clean energy sources including renewables like wind and solar, nuclear energy, efficient natural gas, and clean coal.

The concepts are straightforward, but the execution will be challenging. In order to make this happen, Republicans and Democrats in Congress must find common ground for a responsible and effective energy policy.

But no matter your views on this issue, I think we can all agree that the United States simply can't afford to leave this challenge for future generations to solve.

Sincerely,

David Plouffe

Senior Advisor to the President

P.S. Check out our new Advise the Advisor video featuring Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and give us your feedback on how we can meet the President's goal of reducing imports of oil by one-third in a little over a decade: